


Quartz

by thetealord



Series: Prelude to Diamond & Quartz [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Jazz Age, Science Fiction, Smoking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2015-08-14
Packaged: 2018-04-14 15:21:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4569444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thetealord/pseuds/thetealord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A world-building and character exploration piece as a prelude to the novel I'm writing for NaNoWriMo about a pair of middle-aged gay gentleman spies/assassins. There's a lot of jazz and also cyborgs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Quartz

Wick's cigarette burned down to the nub as he sat next to the fire. He let it hang there, at the corner of his lips, long after that as he stared out at the horizon. The sky was lit up in brilliant orange and red, cast out across the wasteland all around them. The radio strapped to his hip thrummed quietly, brightening up the silence with the tinny sounds of electro-swing, broadcast from somewhere in central Penumbra.

Eventually, he pulled out the cigarette's stub, dropped it to the dirt, and ground it down with the heel of his boot. Pulling out another, he stuck it in his mouth but didn't light it, just rolled it around with his tongue, staring listlessly into the fire until the sun had set.

He was just too on edge to sleep, even as darkness fell. He sat on the burlap bag he carried with him, containing the few things he owned. His sister Isa slept soundly on the other side of the dying fire, her coat draped over her to ward off the slight chill.

Wick narrowed his eyes as he watched Ring Four in the distance. The top of the enormous wall was lit up with bonfires set periodically along it, a warning more than anything. If he looked close enough, he could see the soldiers patrolling, their shadows standing out against the flame, until they melted back into the backdrop of the unfurling night sky.

It was clear and dark aside from those fires and their own campfire, now burning low. New moon. 

He'd been out there in the Rings for years. Practically grew up there, raised by his sister, the wilderness, and the people of the small towns and hamlets they passed through, farmers who gave them shelter in the rare storms, and fellow scientists who thought it logical to share a tent in exchange for a few tips or a fix to their busted hoverbike.

The crickets began to chirp all around him, the wind whispering quietly across scrubland, and normally, he would have felt completely at peace out there. Much more than he ever would in the bustling capital city of Penumbra.

A bush rustled and he whipped his head to face it, narrowing his eyes at the darkness, then shook his head and reached into the pocket of his grey tailcoats, pulling out a gold-plated lighter and finally lighting up the end of his spit-soaked cigarette, inhaling. Smoking was a terrible nervous habit. Thank the Queen Isa had given up on breaking him of it. At least it wasn't as bad now as when he'd first started, after picking it up from his city friends when he was sixteen.

He should sleep. He knew he didn't need to be on watch. There never was, never had been much of anything out in the Rings that could do them any harm. Robbers, maybe, but he and Isa had never been well off, never carried much with them worth stealing. Just the necessities. And this close to a Ring, with the Queen's soldiers so nearby, even a robbery would have been foolish.

Tomorrow, they would pass through the fourth Ring's gate and head into the fifth. The fifth Ring itself was enormous, but there was no gate from there that lead out into the land Beyond. Ring five was the end of the line.

He and Isa, they'd been to the fifth Ring before, maybe ten years back. There was nothing out there. No villages or farms, most people too afraid of what might lurk Beyond. Only solider patrols and miners had any reason to be between Rings four and five.

But like every move she made, his sister had a purpose for going to the fifth Ring. What it was, that was the mystery. All these years together, digging around in caves, working with miners, traveling endlessly across the Rings, and only rarely returning to the city of Penumbra, and she still hadn't told him what it was she was really looking for.

Oh, she had her excuses. She was a scientist, doing medical research mostly, and he'd been hired as her assistant what was about two decades ago now. The institution had them out working on new Serums and tonics mostly, mixtures to cure the sick and enhance the healthy. Wick had a few good bottles of a weak strength Serum himself, and he used them on the rare occasions when they got into a tussle, usually closer to the city in the lower Rings.

But even though their years of harvesting and hunting for the right ingredients, the right compounds, the right stones to complement ground down Whitestone, the right mushrooms or animal parts or wild herbs, he always got the feeling there was something more to it. After all, most of their research and experimenting very well could have been done in the city, in a lab. Farmers could have grown the herbs, raised the animals. But Isa always insisted on being out there in the wild, like she was looking for something she couldn't quite find. And every ten or so years, she led them back to the fifth Ring.

They never really approached it, but she would watch it, like it would give her all the answers, sometimes part ways and disappear for a few days on her own, and then they would pack up and head inward again.

This time, he had a funny feeling about the whole thing. A bad feeling, and after so many years in the Rings his instincts were damn good.

Dropping the butt of the cigarette as he smoked the second one down to the nub, he ground that one out, too, and shrugged off his tailcoat, scrubbing a hand back through his floppy brown hair.

At least he wasn't like those people in the city. He didn't come up with stories about how the land Beyond was filled with rivers of gold and endless fruit. Why would the soldiers be so intent on keeping them in if that was all there was? No, there was something out there, something big, and whatever it was, the Queen didn't want any of them to know about it. But Isa... she sure did. 

Maybe she already knew.

Reaching to his hip, he turned up the knob on the small box radio and let the slow, muffled notes of soft jazz soothe the troubling thoughts away.

 


End file.
